Turkey 911! Butterball's Hotline Saves Your Thanksgiving

Butterball's "Turkey Talk-Line" will take 12,000 calls on Thanksgiving Day. More than a million home cooks dial with frantic questions over the course of a holiday season. A veteran turkey tech support rep tells PM about the turkey disaster stories she's fielded—and how you can avoid them.

In her nine years at Butterball's Turkey Talk hotline (1-800-BUTTERBALL), Phyllis Kramer has heard every turkey problem imaginable—and some it's practically impossible to picture. Once, she says, a whole roomful of people called her on speakerphone. The turkey was on the table, they were ready to eat, and they were angry.

"They said, 'We're trying to carve this turkey, but there's no meat on the bones,'" Kramer says. She thought for a moment, then suggested they turn it over. Sure enough, they had cooked the turkey upside-down. "You could hear them cheering and clapping," she says.

Once, a man called who was planning to propose to his girlfriend in front of their families. He wanted to know if he could put the engagement ring inside the turkey. "I don't know about you," says Kramer, "but I don't think she'd be too pleased to dig it out of there. We talked him through doing it a different way. But it would have been a memorable engagement!"

Not all Thanksgiving Day dilemmas can be so easily fixed, but most can be prevented. Here are the three most common disasters reported through Butterball's turkey hotline—and how to avoid them.

Disaster: "I'm ready to cook, but the turkey is still frozen."

Scenario: Once a man called the hotline, panicked, because he'd buried his turkey in the snow in his yard, having run out of room in his freezer—then couldn't relocate it. As Butterball has yet to equip their turkeys with GPS, Kramer acknowledged she couldn't help him. A much more common problem, Kramer says, is that people don't take the turkey out of the freezer early enough.

Advice: In the refrigerator, a turkey will thaw at a rate of about four pounds a day—so a 20-pound turkey needs to start thawing five days in advance. If you already missed that window, don't fear. There are a couple of tricks to speed up the thawing process. The quickest technique, Kramer says, is to thaw the turkey in cold water. Place it breast side down, unwrapped, in a large vessel like a sink or cooler, then cover it completely with cold water. Change the water frequently. This method takes about 30 minutes per pound.

Disaster: "I can't tell if the turkey is done."

Scenario: One Thanksgiving Day, a young woman called the hotline from a hiding place in her hallway. "My mother and my mother-in-law are in the kitchen," she whispered to Kramer. "One says the turkey is done and one says it isn't. What do I do?"

Advice: A thermometer is the surest way to resolve this kind of squabble, Kramer says. A fully cooked bird should register 170 degrees in the breast and 180 degrees in the thigh. Turkey stuffing should reach 165 degrees to ensure it's safe to eat. To avoid overcooking the breast meat, Kramer suggests tenting it with aluminum foil about two-thirds of the way through roasting.

Of course, this advice won't help if the thermometer is faulty. If it's been rolling around the drawer for a while, test it prior to Thanksgiving by holding it with a pair of tongs in boiling water. If it reads 212 degrees, you can trust it.

Disaster: "I overcooked the turkey."

Scenario: "I talked to a woman about an hour ago," Kramer says. "She was going to get up at 4 am to put the turkey in the oven." You may remember your grandmother setting an alarm for the crack of dawn to do the same thing. Back then, it was a tough old bird (the turkey, not Grandma), and it was probably cooked in one of those old-style, high-sided roasting pans—both factors that dramatically increase the required cooking time. Turkeys are now younger and more tender.

Advice: The best way to cook a turkey today is what's called "shallow roasting," Kramer says. Put the turkey in a low-sided roasting pan, on a rack if possible. Brush it with oil and pop it in a 325-degree oven. A 10- to 18-pound turkey, unstuffed, will take between three and three and a half hours to fully cook.

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